Ugh, look away! They're heinous!

Back when I was the editor of my student newspaper in college, I drew the ire and attention of the local chapter of the National Organization of Women after I wrote a harmless entertainment editorial about how the James Bond franchise should be celebrated for creating empowering characters in the Bond girls. Of course, the male president of this NOW chapter (*rolls eyes*) argued that Bond girls were objectified sluts, but it taught me an important lesson that if you take a stance regarding women and their looks, you’re going to piss people off.

And the point of this edition of “Cool Story, Bro” is that nobody ever taught CNBC reporter Darren Rovell that lesson, because on Saturday night, the self-proclaimed “Twitter police” had the balls to Tweet the following from the Playboy Super Bowl party:

Obviously, if you’re familiar with Rovell’s work, he likes to play with numbers, throw around statistics about money and impose his will on anyone who listens. He needs us all to know that he’s in charge and we’re just the pooper scoopers of his Twitter elephant. There isn’t really a big problem with that Tweet, as there just weren’t enough ladies for his liking, so he vented a little. Then he vented a lot.

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I ran into Charles Barkley at a bar in Orlando on my 30th birthday a few years back, as he was in town for the NBA playoffs, and I had two of my paid escorts attractive lady friends approach him and ask if he’d take a picture with me for my birthday and he said no. Two seconds later, I saw a flash go off and there was the Round Mound of Poon Hound taking a picture with four random girls. Naturally, I was a little pissed, but “Cool story, bro” aside, this is my way of saying that because Barkley is a dick, a lot of us have grown quite fond of him as a TNT analyst for the NBA. His honesty is simply fresh and funny.

But that doesn’t mean that he is a comedian. Barkley hosted “Saturday Night Live” for the third time this past Saturday, marking the second year in a row that he’s hosted the first show of the new year. And just like his first appearance in 1993 and his second appearance last year, Barkley’s third go as host was filled with terrible delivery, poor timing and the most excruciating cue card reading this side of an infomercial for The Perfect Meatloaf.

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If you don’t like pro wrestling, you may not understand the near-constant, terrible game of mental chess going on in the heads of its fans.

We don’t live in the moment — we live six months down the road from the moment, discussing and arranging and rearranging where we think the match or moment we just saw will end up. We’re always three moves ahead in a game that doesn’t exist, and that spreads to the Internet, and that spreads to news. Sadly this is as close as most wrestling fans will ever come to playing chess.

That being said, here’s a line from today’s Wrestling Observer:

Shaquille O’Neal today on the Abe Kanan show mentioned that he is in talks for a match against Big Show at this coming year’s WrestleMania.

Fans have been speculating about a Shaq vs. Big Show Wrestlemania match since July of 2009, when the two came to blows during Shaq’s guest hosting appearance on WWE Raw. Big Show is the most Shaq-sized guy WWE has and Shaq isn’t busy with basketball anymore, so hey, why not? Big Show has proven that he’s the go-to guy for the best and worst of celebrity guest matches, having a fantastic match with boxer Floyd Mayweather at Wrestlemania 24 and one of the worst pieces of sh*t you’ll ever see against Sumo Grand Champion Akebono at Wrestlemania 21.

Plus, Shaq is no stranger to pro wrestling. Ever wanted to see an old white guy rip off Shaq’s clothes in a masculine rage? That and more, below.

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Hey there, With Leather reader, were you one of the lucky, forthright individuals who thought a hologram-embedded band could be scientifically proven to enhance balance, flexibility and strength because Shaq and Drew Brees and some tennis players said so? Did your brain trick you into thinking someone would sell super-human strength for only $29.99? Do you play those Nigel West Dickens missions in Red Dead Redemption and think, “hey, this guy’s onto something”? Then you’ll love this quote from TMZ, which you probably already read:

Power Balance — the company that allegedly duped athletes into believing its bracelets could provide super-human strength — is about to take a $57 million dollar hit in a lawsuit filed by people who called BS on the product … TMZ has learned.

Now, sources with direct knowledge of the situation tell TMZ … the company has reached a settlement worth $57.4 million, intended to compensate all those who were misled into buying the product.

And it gets worse for PB — we’re told the company will be declaring bankruptcy and plans to fold up shop altogether.

You can order a Power Balance Bracelet today via Amazon for $2.60, a 91% discount. And hey, just because there’s no scientific evidence to back it up and the phrase “holograms which are embedded with frequencies” is meaningless doesn’t mean those 33 five-star reviews are invalid. Right? Uh, right? Sh*t, now what am I gonna tell my friend at the mall kiosk?

Everything’s a placebo, though, isn’t it? Eventually we’re going to find out we don’t even need food, we’ve just convinced ourselves that we’ll starve to death if we don’t have it. If I can’t trust a Shaq-endorsed mega bracelet, what can I trust?

Welcome to another installment of Wild Card Wednesday, as I try to cram together all of the awesome, random things that we’ve been missing out on in favor of the big stories and half-naked Marisa Miller…

At some point on Sunday, Houston Texans quarterback Matt Schaub hurt his foot and now it looks like his season is over. I’m sure that the Texans won’t completely give up on Schaub until a doctor does something cool and drastic like slam his glasses down and yell, “Damn it, I’m not God!” In the meantime, the second coming of Matt Leinart is upon us, and somewhere there’s a Jacuzzi not being boned in.

Last night, Houston tight end James Casey Tweeted the above image of a local Hooters showing support for the new QB. Unfortunately, after calling the Hooters, I learned that they ran out of space and it should have read: “Hey Leinart, we believe you gave us all gonorrhea.” OK, I may have made that up. But would you bet against it?

I’ve got my fingers crossed for you, Texans fans. God knows this would be my response to losing Schaub…

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Links

Shaq Talks About The Moment The Lakers Dynasty Died - Stupid Deadspin, always getting the exclusives. The only review copy of a book I ever got was a hardcover about Derek Jeter, and I can’t really make a news post with “Derek Jeter is great and everyone thinks so” blurbs. [Smoking Section]

4 Science Fiction Series Netflix Should Bring Back - I don’t really care about ‘Reaper’, but bringing back the other three would be great, especially Justice League. That show was secretly the best thing on TV for like three years. [Gamma Squad]

Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels: Behind One of WWE’s Greatest Rivalries - The Masked Man reviews the latest WWE DVD and makes 100% fewer “we’re gonna get hungry and leave no man untested” jokes than I would’ve. Don’t ever let me write for Grantland. [Grantland]

Our Favorite TV-Related Halloween Costumes from Walking Around NYC - I wish I’d thought to do this for Austin, but I wouldn’t be able to stomach all the “hipster” comments. I saw one guy dressed as “think outside the box” and he was just wearing a box, no lie. [Warming Glow]

Someone Shouted “Where’s Bumblebee Now?” While Shia Was Getting Beat Up - It would’ve been better if Shia himself had yelled BUMBLEBEEEAHHHH while getting beaten up, but I’ll take it. What a Disturbia-ing situation! [Film Drunk]

Bill Murray Fan Art: A Sneak Preview Of Gallery1988′s ‘Please Post Bills’ Exhibit - If anybody deserves fan art, it’s him. [UPROXX]

The Last Words of 25 Geniuses - I hope my last words are “I’ll get you next time, Gadget” and possibly “yeaaarghhhh”. [Buzzfeed]

Heck Yeah, CHIKARA! - My new favorite independent wrestling Tumblr, pending at least two more Archibald Peck gifs per week. [Tumblr]

Plugin Allows You To “De-Kardashian” Your Browser - Great, there go our pageviews! [The FW]

Top 10 Lil Wayne Songs - I like the one where he mumbles and it sounds like he wrote it in 20 seconds before the music started. You see a lot of crooks and the crooks still crook! [PopCrush]

5 Easy Ways to Fix ’2 Broke Girls’ - “Take off Kat Dennings’ shirt” had better be on here somewhere. [AOL TV]

Six Influential Dead Guys I’d Like to Have Dinner With - My list would include Buck O’Neil and Jesus, just to see how Buck reacts, and to see which one I like more. [Unreality]

God’s Eye View: The Supercut - Now somebody do a Dog’s Eye View Supercut where it’s clips from every Dog’s Eye View video. [High Definite]